Burn! was stripped of 20 minutes of footage prior to its North American release, resulting in a storyline that is - despite the inexplicable appearance of a narrator at the one-hour mark - occasionally impossible to follow, although Gillo Pontecorvo's ambitious direction and Marlon Brando's electrifying performance go a long way towards keeping things interesting. Brando stars as William Walker, a British mercenary sent to an island controlled by the Portuguese to incite a slave revolt (which will, in turn, allow the British to take over the island's valuable sugar supply). He installs an ambitious slave named Jose Dolores (Evaristo Marquez) as the leader of the uprising, but must deal with the consequences when his creation begins doing things his own way. Pontecorvo, coming off the success of The Battle of Algiers, imbues Burn! with a larger-than-life, unmistakably epic sensibility - complete with an astounding number of background performers - and there's no denying that the film succeeds on the level of sheer spectacle. But despite a number of positives (including a memorable and haunting score by Ennio Morricone), Burn! nevertheless remains oddly aloof - a problem that's exacerbated by the awful dubbing that accompanies virtually every single performance.

out of

A Dry White Season (November 9/05)

Though it's far from subtle, A Dry White Season is nevertheless a powerful examination of the effects of Apartheid on a privileged white man. Donald Sutherland stars as Benjamin du Toit, a teacher at a South African school who receives an unpleasant lesson in racism when his gardener "commits suicide" after being held for several days by the police. Director and co-screenwriter Euzhan Palcy's overly simplistic approach - particularly in terms of du Toit's radical transformation from intolerant elite to compassionate supporter of black rights - prevents A Dry White Season from becoming the gripping and wholly engaging piece of work it clearly wants to be, though there's no denying the effectiveness of several individual sequences within the film. Having said that, Sutherland's superb performance often elevates the material, while Marlon Brando completely dominates the screen in a small role as an eccentric barrister. Were it not for some of the more one-sided elements within Palcy and Colin Welland's screenplay, there's little doubt that A Dry White Season would now be regarded as a classic Apartheid-themed film.

out of

The Missouri Breaks (November 11/05)

Featuring the only onscreen collaboration between Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, The Missouri Breaks is a strange, almost inexplicable Western revolving around an outlaw (Nicholson) and the bounty hunter (Brando) sent to kill him. Director Arthur Penn - along with cinematographer Michael C. Butler - imbues the film with an appropriately gritty and unkempt visual style, a vibe that's reflected in Thomas McGuane's meandering screenplay. There's not much of a plot at work here; rather, much of the film is devoted to the individual machinations of Brando and Nicholson's respective characters. As a result, certain portions of The Missouri Breaks are more effective than others - with the movie's opening half hour particularly uneven and devoted almost entirely to pointless discussions about taxes and rustlers (the film's conclusion, on the other hand, is surprisingly electrifying). And as effective as Nicholson is, this is Brando's show from start to finish - despite the fact that he's actually not on screen all that much. The actor, sporting an Irish accent and a series of increasingly bizarre hats, delivers a hypnotically broad performance that often feels as though it'd be more at home in a completely different movie - yet there's no denying that Brando's off-kilter presence keeps The Missouri Breaks afloat during some of the more dull sequences (Brando's conversation with his horse, in which he notes that the animal has "the lips of Salome and the eyes of Cleopatra," must be seen to be believed).

out of

About the DVDs: MGM Home Entertainment presents each of these films in their proper aspect ratios, while bonus features are non-existent.